Santa versus the Hooligans

 Introduction

Many times over the life of this blog, I have run a Christmas-themed game of Hordes of the Things.  All of these can be found using this link: https://colgar6.blogspot.com/search/label/Santa .

The annual holiday game didn't happen last year (global pandemic, don't ya know!), but we're back in 2021 with a new battle.  This time, Santa's home is under threat from tribes of goblins and their associated wolves & trolls.  He has allied with a barbarian tribe (probably through promises of extreme feasting and loot, I imagine!) to defend against this threat.

The Forces

Each of the 4 bands was an independent 24AP army for Hordes of the Things.  The forces of destruction (two goblin armies) were controlled by my friend Steve, whilst the bringers of light and happiness were led by myself and my son.  I took the barbarians, whilst my son took Santa.  He (my son, not Santa!) had just received a vaccine booster shot the day before and hadn't slept well overnight.  This might go part way towards explaining some of the outcomes in the game!

Santa's Army

Santa's force is a mixture of elves, toy soldiers, fierce ice bears and hordes of snowmen.  It is described in more detail here: http://colgar6.blogspot.com/2013/12/hott-santas-army.html .

The Barbarians

My barbarians have a lot of foot warband elements (as might be expected), some archers, some hard-charging panther-mounted knights and a general mounted on a woolly rhino.

The Goblin Raiders

Facing the barbarians we had a goblin force consisting of 2 trolls, hordes of goblins and a large number of wolf riders.  Also, the woods are full of  (unridden) wolves.

[Side note: this force looks like more than 24AP to me.  Oh, well - mistakes may have been made, but if so then it didn't affect the end result, as you will see].

The Goblin Hooligans

The goblin force facing Santa also had two trolls.  It was lead by some greater goblin warbands and had huge numbers of lesser goblins.  Even when deployed, these vandals pushed over the signpost which led to the North Pole, thus earning the title "the hooligans".

The Battle

Most of Santa's army ran forwards as fast as they could.  The sleigh flew past the goblin lines and circled overhead, impervious to all.  On the other flank, the barbarians advanced cautiously, not wanting to fight in the wolf-infested forest.

In return, the goblin warbands and trolls charged off their hill.  They caught the elves before they could shoot and annihilated them.  On the far flank, the ice bears tore through hordes of lesser goblins - but there were always more of the nasty little creatures joining the back ranks.

Santa's snowmen had a minor moment of success when they flanked, outnumbered and swarmed a troll, but this didn't make up for the losses they were taking.

Finally, Santa in his sleigh descended and attacked some of the goblin warband.  Whilst he was very successful against a small part of the goblin host, their general and remaining troll made a run for Santa's cottage!  Desperately, the barbarians attempted to (a) prevent the other goblin army from interfering and (b) move some troops sideways to support Santa.  However, this level of coordination was just too much for their hairy, unwashed brains...

Santa overran his first opponents and flew towards the troll (which had just wiped out Santa's artillery with contemptuous ease).  Nearby, the goblin general eliminated all the snowmen who had been respawned in front of the cottage.

With a shout of triumph, the goblin hooligan's big boss broke into Santa's home.  They pushed over the signpost, cut down the trees, smashed the crockery and ransacked the place (opening all the presents and leaving torn wrappings everywhere).  Oh, dear!

Meanwhile, the ice bears continued to torment the goblin hordes, but just couldn't make headway against the ever-replenishing numbers.  The barbarian knights were cut off and destroyed, though their woolly rhino just kept ploughing forwards, pushing back whatever got in its way.  Finally, Santa was left arguing with a large, smelly troll about the proper meaning of Christmas.  Game over!

Conclusion

Well, that was an abrupt ending!

• The goblins timed their run for the cottage perfectly.  Santa simply couldn't catch all of them on his own and they breezed through the second echelon stuff that was left to guard the objective.
• Santa sacrificed some of his troops early in charging forwards; the shooters might have been better employed waiting for the enemy to come to them instead.
• The ice bears were bogged down fighting with vast hordes of goblins.  Even though they were generally winning each round of combat the bears had a long way to go before they could push the little monsters off the table.
• The barbarians were mesmerised by the wood full of wolves; fearful of a flank attack if they tried to skirt around it and not confident of their chances if they attacked the forest head on.
• When the barbarians eventually tried to redeploy, it was too complicated and too late.  All they did was sacrifice their mounted troops for no real gain.

So, a well-deserved victory to the goblin hooligans.  Let's hope that isn't an omen for Christmas 2021!

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my readers!

The Battle of Santa's Farm!

Introduction

Even if I haven't done so in any of the previous 12 months, this is the time of year when I host a large-scale battle using the Hordes of the Things rules.  What's the occasion?  Why Christmas, of course - when I retrieve my Santa-themed army and put it on the table with various allies and enemies.  Let the best man/saint/troll/goblin/snowman win!

Last year, Santa routed the opposition.  Can he repeat that success this year?  Read on...

Setup

We had 6 armies facing each other across the table in this game.

For the good side (top to bottom):

• Tilean mercenaries:  Solid spearmen, some heavy cavalry, some crossbowmen, a cannon, a birdman/flying machine and a base of duelists/assassins (sneakers).
• Santa: ice bears, elves with sten guns (and mince pies), a toy cannon and hordes of snowmen.
• Kung Fu: heroes, a buddhist priest, swordsmen and hordes of peasants.

Evil (or at least, naughty, selfish and greedy):

• Goblins: wolf riders, trolls, green hordes.
• Barbarians (centre): rhino rider, archers, warbands.
• Barbarians (right wing): heroes, panther riders, warbands

In the Beginning

As one might expect, the evil side advanced across the board.  If they could just capture Santa's house then it would be "game over", so they had every incentive to play aggressively.

In the far north, the Tilean general rode forwards, perhaps a bit recklessly not waiting for the rest of his troops.  He was swiftly surrounded and cut off by goblins and trolls.

Santa flew his sleigh right over the enemy lines and circled behind them.  He was waiting for an opportunity to pounce on any unsuspecting element.

His first chance arrived almost immediately, as the (centre) barbarians ignored him in favour of continuing their advance.  Santa's sleigh swept down on their back ranks and destroyed one element before taking off again!

To the north, the Tilean general was cut down; this shook and demoralised the remainder of the mercenary force.  Many of them immediately turned and fled, though the spearmen and crossbows held their ground.  Demoralised enemy forces: Good (0), Naughty (1).

Interestingly, the Tilean duelists were engaged with massed goblins in the forest; the sneakers couldn't really be hurt by the hordes (or vice versa) - but they couldn't/wouldn't break off either.  The goblin hordes spent much of the game tied up in this useless fashion - hunting for assassins that they just couldn't pin down!

Near the fountain in the centre, the snowmen started to tear apart the advancing barbarian warbands in front of them.  The elf shooters, having disposed of their barbarian counterparts, joined in as well.  Before long (and completely against the odds), the barbarian (centre) force was decimated and demoralised, with only a few stray elements dispiritedly holding their ground.  Demoralised enemy forces: Good (1), Naughty (1).

At the other end of the battlefield, the Kung Fu swordsmen held off the barbarian cavalry and heroes.  Mostly...

After many turns in which the combat swayed too and fro, the barbarians (right wing) stepped up a gear and chewed through much of the Kung Fu army in just a single turn, whilst only taking a few losses.  Demoralised enemy forces: Good (1), Naughty (2).

In the middle of the game, Santa struck again!  This time he landed in a swamp in order to attack a troll that was involved in a complex fight involving the goblin general and some of his ice bears.  Let's just say that it didn't go very well for either element in the middle of this fight!

The loss of the Tileans had uncovered Santa's flank and the goblin general thought he saw an opportunity.  He led his wolf riders into a charge against Santa's toy cannon, which was then also attacked in the rear by a couple of barbarian heroes from the other flank.

This didn't look good at all.  However, I am reliably informed that the cannon was loaded with Christmas trees this time - not like earlier in the game, when we figured it must have been firing marshmallows, for all the damage it was doing.  The goblin general was well-and-truly skewered and with his demise the remaining goblins decided they wanted no further part in the fight.  Demoralised enemy forces: Good (2), Naughty (2).

So, it looked as if it was coming down the the wire now.  There remained just Santa's army (somewhat damaged) and the barely-touched barbarians (right wing).  The swift barbarian chieftain made an attempt to break into Santa's house, but was chased off by Mrs. Claus (I imagine a rolling pin was involved, possibly also with the threat of ... soap.  Or mistletoe).

Not fancying his army's chances - they were slightly outnumbered and somewhat scattered & out of position - Santa decided to finish this in single combat with the enemy general, "mano e mano".  Whoever lost this fight would probably lose the game, as the remainder of their army would almost certainly be demoralised and withdraw from the battle.  Santa charged his sleigh straight at the barbarian prince...

.who sidestepped nimbly at the last moment and overturned the man-in-red into the snow.  Thus ends the tale; Christmas is no more; victory to the barbarians!

Conclusion

This was a special game, especially as I managed to persuade several club members to play their first game of Hordes of the Things because of the occasion.  I believe that it was much enjoyed by the participants and I hope that the tale will be appreciated by all my other readers too!

Highlights:

• I loved seeing the goblin hordes playing hide-and-seek with the Tilean assassins in the forest.  The sneakers had something of a combat advantage, though this was swiftly reduced by outflanking and demoralisation to something like parity with the goblins.  However, these Tileans just couldn't roll low for almost all the game.
• Santa's cannon, elves and angry snowmen saw off pretty much all comers!  At least, until faced with overwhelming odds...
• One troll from the goblin force engaged a Kung Fu hero late in the game.  Even though both were demoralised, the troll just didn't know to give up and kept chasing the hero across the board [I don't think that Hordes of the Things elements cease to be impetuous once they are demoralised?].
• The barbarian leader's brazen attack on Santa's cottage could have ended the game immediately; it was a 50:50 chance.  However, he was chased off by the stronghold's defences.

Low Points:

• The Tilean flying machine ran away without engaging - again!  I don't think I've ever seen it do anything useful in any game...
• Santa's defeat at the hands of a barbarian has to be a depressing thought - but I'm sure he'll be back!

Santa: The Battle of 6 Armies

Introduction

It's that time of the year again!  Just before Christmas, I pull my Santa army from storage and arrange a big battle of Hordes of the Things.  This time, there were 6 armies involved (3 for Good/Jollity and 3 for Evil/Humbug) together with 3 objectives.  To find out what happened, read on...

Doesn't look much like the North Pole, does it?  I blame global warming...

The 6 Armies: forces of Good

1. Elves.  These are my son's figures and he hasn't painted up enough for a "proper" Hordes of the Things army.  To compensate for their inferior numbers, we lifted the "superior" status from DBMM and gave it to all of them.  In past games these elves have proved to be extremely tough...

Santa's army.  This is more fully described ==> here <==.

Kung Fu.  Again, this army is described in detail ==> here <==.

The 6 Armies: forces of Evil

Goblins.  Hordes and more hordes, some wolves, warband general.  Also, they have a troll...

Undead.  This is a difficult army to command as extra PiPs (initiative points) are needed for both the flyers and for the magician.

Barbarians: warband, shooters, panther riders (knights) and heroes.  Much of this army is impetuous...

 The Game

Wolves and a troll surged forwards towards Mrs. Claus' house.  It took the troll a while to work out how to enter, but eventually he (she? it?) did so and claimed the objective for the evil side.  I don't think Mrs Claus will ever get that smell out of the carpets...

The elves advanced to meet this assault; their archers rained arrows upon the wolf riders and destroyed one element.  Firsat blood to the forces of good!

Here's a little extra rule that we used on the day: one of my club mates had brought a large bag of chocolates to the meeting.  I ruled that each time an enemy element was destroyed, the victor could have one.  It certainly gave some real-world consequence to the fights.

On the other flank, the barbarians surged forwards enthusiastically.  In an unexpected turn of events, their hero general was repulsed; this defeat then affected all the other combats down the line and the barbarians didn't win a single fight.

The Kung Fu front line counterattacked and, with a spectacularly bad series of dice rolls, much of the barbarian army just disintegrated.

The barbarian commander fought on alone and even managed to slay one of the Kung Fu heroes, but the odds were heavily against him and he was surrounded.  Even though his attackers sportingly gave him a chance by rolling a '1' (!), the dispirited warrior couldn't fight on any more (he rolled a '1' himself.  Again!).

The centre was an almost totally defensive fight for the undead, as they never had enough PiPs to move more than a handful of troops.  Indeed, the giant bats were never activated during the entire game.

The necromancer general stayed at the back, casting ineffectual spells at Santa's army.  In return, the ice bears charged forwards and fought with zombies and skeletons.  There were losses on both sides, but when Santa joined in as well, the tide turned in favour of the forces of good.

Then, disaster struck the undead!  Firstly, the vampire knights were destroyed in combat with a horde of snowmen.  That's nearly (but not quite) impossible.

Then, Santa saw the necromancer standing alone behind the ranks of skeletal infantry.  A twitch on the reins was all he needed to guide his flying reindeer over the intervening enemies.  The sleigh landed directly on top of the undead general, squashing him into the dirt.

With the loss of their commander, the undead army crumbled to dust (it failed the "panic" roll on the turn after losing the general).  All that was left were a few ghosts (i.e. the sneaker element), drifting about the battlefield looking for something they could haunt.

Over near the cottage, the elf bowmen advanced slowly, slaughtering everything that stood in their way (by this time, the Good players were starting to refuse the chocolates they earned for every 'kill'; it was just too much for them).

The elf spearmen moved past the house in an attempt to engage the troll, but were ambushed from the side by the goblin general and his warband.  For many turns, these embattled elves threw the evil forces back (their 'superior' status helped here!), but the goblins just kept on coming until eventually they overran the first group of elven infantry.

The greater goblins pressed their advantage and pushed the remaining elf spearmen up the hill.  For a brief moment it looked as if the goblin army might be able to inflict some real hurt on the forces of good, but by this time Santa was free from crushing the necromancer.

The sleigh took to the skies once more and came barreling down the hill, into (and through) the troll without even slowing down.  That catastrophic loss was too much to bear and all of the goblin hordes fled the battlefield in terror, leaving just their demoralised general and his bodyguard.  There seemed little point in playing on after this, so we called the game.

Conclusion

That was a rout!  Of the 3 evil sides, only the goblins put up much of a fight. Their opponents (the elves) suffered the heaviest losses of any good army - and even that was only 2 elements.  The barbarians' collapse was unexpected but spectacular; I don't know if I've ever seen so many '1's rolled in a row.  The necromancer's command-heavy army never threw higher than a '3' on a d6 for PiPs (it might have been a '4' on one turn; my memory isn't perfect here) and was consequently paralysed & ineffectual.  It basically stood there and allowed Santa to attack wherever and whenever he desired.

I don't want to take anything away from the good side's victory, though: they played competently and came away with a massive win.  Sometimes what looks like an even fight just isn't.

So, make merry and enjoy yourselves this Christmas, in the knowledge that evil has been roundly defeated once again.  Have another chocolate, if you can face it 🙂...

Bees in 28mm?

Introduction

I have a very slow project to collect a "Wicked Witch of the West" army for Hordes of the Things.  This is of course from the land of Oz which is described in the books of L. Frank Baum and is probably best known to most people from the 1939 MGM film "The Wizard of Oz".

In that film, the witch is shown commanding legions of flying monkeys and has a number of Winkie spearmen as her castle guards.  However, the book also describes her sending crows, bees and wolves to torment and distract Dorothy's party.

OK, so what's the plan?  The army I envisage will have:

• Witch (with attached crows): already done.  In a previous article, I showed the completed Witch's element (and that was 4 years ago, for goodness sake!).
• Winkies: Hmm.  There aren't any models which are perfect matches, but it shouldn't be too hard to find/convert something that will do the job.
• Wolves: There are plenty of 28mm wolf miniatures, I just need to choose some.
• Winged monkeys: Available from Eureka Miniatures.  I have a few already, but could probably use many more.
• Bees: How the heck am I going to model bees?

The rest of this article describes how I did indeed model some bees.

Making the "Substrate"

The problem with modelling bees or any other insect swarm is this:

1. They're very small creatures, but occur in large numbers.
2. They fly, so the model needs to fill a large volume of space with many gaps between the individual creatures.

This being so, it's simply not practical to make 3D representations of each individual insect, connected by wires or similar.  Instead, they'll need to be painted onto some surface.

I thought about transparent shapes for a while; they need to encompass quite a large volume but be as unobtrusive as possible.  A small dome might work well (repurposed snow globe?), but I didn't have anything like that.

Here's an interesting piece of clear plastic, though.  It's an empty food container; I think it originally held 4 different types of chocolate cake sprinkles.  Maybe it will work for what I intend to build?

Firstly, I cut off the outer parts; I was only really interested in the inner core.  I used a razor saw to make the cuts; note that this was not easy as I was trying very hard not to scratch or otherwise mark the pieces.

Once I had the length of core piece that I wanted, I rounded the top corners and smoothed the edges as much as possible.  My attempts to polish out the scratches were useless, but I did paint some clear varnish over the cut edges and this does seem to have helped to tone down the "whiteness".

How do you paint a Bee?

Indeed - how do you paint a bee?  I needed a simple recipe which could be repeated dozens (hundreds?) of times at very small scale, yet which would represent the insect a bit better than a plain, black dot.

Here's what I came up with:

1. Firstly, paint a couple of yellow stripes (more ochre than bright yellow - these aren't wasps after all!).  It may seem odd to start with this, but remember that I'm painting on a transparent surface.  These will be the bee's stripes when viewed from the other side.  If I was painting on an opaque sheet then this step would be pointless...
2. The bee's body is represented with a couple of black dots, one of which (the abdomen) covers up the bars painted in step 1.
3. A quick black stroke at an angle is used for the insect's legs
4. Now decorate this side of the abdomen with a couple more yellow/ochre stripes.
5. Add another blob for the wings in a pale grey.  It doesn't even matter if this is slightly translucent.
6. Repeat many, many times...

The Result

One I had painted all my bees, it was a trivial matter to create a suitable base and glue the "swarm" to it.

Note that the bees are fairly crude!  I did follow my recipe, but the blobs and lines are not very precise.  Indeed, I kept discovering mistakes - such as bees without wings - and although I think that I've fixed all of these, I cannot be sure.  Still, does it matter; no-one will be looking at the individual insects, will they?

Conclusion

I'm reasonably happy with the result.  This was a very cheap build in terms of materials and didn't even take too much time.  It could just as easily be used to model any other type of flying swarm, of course - locusts, flies, winged ants, wasps or whatever else you fancy.

The only thing that I'm unsure about is the shape of the clear plastic core.  Perhaps a small dome would have worked better after all?

Addendum: Maybe I should have used a dome?  See here for how that worked ==>

December Oddments: Finished Models

Introduction

Just over a month ago, I showed the state of my workbench (here ==>).  Since then, I've been trying conscientiously to finish some of the longer-term projects which were contributing to the clutter.  Whilst this task is by no means complete, I have made progress; here are some of the results...

Super Dungeon Explore: Emerald Valley

I've been working my way through one of the Super Dungeon Explore expansions: the "Emerald Valley" warband set.  So far, I've completed the hero that came with this set (the Silver Chevalier) and have moved on to the monsters that inhabit the area.

This is Glimmerwing, the mini-boss who controls Emerald Valley.  She's a 'Fairy Dragon', which seems to mean that her strengths in game terms are in magic use rather than physical power.  Having said this, I'd say that the model looks quite robust enough to chew off some adventurer's head!

Most of this mode is simply painted green and then highlighted with 2 or 3 lighter shades.

The wings were more involved, as only the "veins" were done in green.  The "membrane" between these prominent lines was painted in a pale undercoat and then coloured with several thick washes/thin paints (take your pick).  Water was used on the brush to lessen the intensity of each colour when further away from the focal point, or even to blend a little with an adjacent colour.

Whilst the result isn't perfect, I'm reasonably happy with it.

The Emerald Valley warband itself consists of pigs and mushrooms.  Not scary?  Take a look at these elite Okoshrooms!  Basically, one of these is a very large mushroom man with a rope around its middle, tied to two large mace heads.

There's not a lot of detail on the mushroom bodies, but I have attempted some subtle shading nevertheless.  Fortunately, the rope, face and cap add plenty of colour and texture to draw the eye away from the bland body.

Out of curiosity, why does a mushroom need a fig leaf (or equivalent)?  Modesty seems unlikely, both from a botanical point of view and also because these berserkers don't seem the types to be worried by such a consideration.  Who knows (though it's probably better if you keep your answers to yourself)?

Hordes of the Things: Barbarians

My Barbarian army for Hordes of the Things has been growing steadily.  Last year, it was large enough to provide one part of the force which took on Santa in my annual Christmas Game.  Since then, I've expanded it by adding some panther cavalry, with the ultimate aim of being able to field 48 or 72AP (i.e. 2 or 3 times the normal HotT army size).

I've been looking for a general for the second 24AP "army" and here he is.  As soon as I saw this model, I knew that I had found my barbarian chieftain!  He is, of course, Kovornik, the Barbarian Outcast from the Frostgrave range.  I've classed him as a somewhat-unusual Behemoth General.  In HotT, Behemoths are usually big, dumb things such as trolls or giants, not leaders.  It'll be interesting to see how well or badly this works in practice...

This is a all-resin model and it's incredibly detailed.  For a long time I was too scared to do much with it, but once I knuckled down I found that it wasn't too hard after all.  Still took a while to paint, though...

Finally, here are some more Barbarian warband elements.  The figures are all 28mm castings from Black Tree Design, though this time there are some conversions in amongst them.  Some of these BTD models were spearmen, but I wanted them to represent HotT warband rather than spear bases.

The standard bearer is an obvious and straightforward adaptation; the top of the spear was cut off  and replaced with a banner from an old set of plastic Warhammer goblins.

Two other spearmen had their entire right arms (including the spears) removed at the shoulder.  These were replaced by arms from the same set of Warhammer goblins, one waving a crude sword and the other holding a large, curved horn.  I was very pleased to find that he plastic parts fitted very well and were just the right size and style!

Conclusion

As always, this isn't everything on which I have been working recently, but it is fairly representative.  It's a considerable relief to be completing models again and reducing the clutter on the work bench - especially as Christmas is coming up very soon.  After all, who knows how much new stuff I might be given then?